Is your car insurance policy about to expire? Make sure to renew it in a timely manner to stay on the right side of the law. Most people consider purchasing and renewing car insurance as a mere compliance-related activity. Essentially, insurance is a way of minimizing financial losses. And car insurance comes in handy in case your vehicle is involved in an unfortunate event such as an accident. Therefore, there’s more to car insurance, especially if you are about to renew it. Read ahead to know 7 important tips that you should know while renewing a car insurance policy online.

1. Do It Yourself

Car insurance isn’t too complicated. In fact, new-age insurers have simplified their offerings so that it becomes easy for vehicle owners to buy and renew car insurance easily.

Car buyers usually go for the car insurance policy suggested by the showroom or the dealer from where they purchased the vehicle. However, you do have the option of insuring the car without any intermediary by selecting an insurer and purchasing or renewing it from their website. You are in a better position to analyze your requirements, gauge the extent of your cover and make an informed decision.

2. Review Your Coverage

You do not need to continue with the same insurance coverage you had opted for a year ago. You can increase or decrease the coverage based on your current needs.

In case you were not aware of Add-on covers while purchasing your Comprehensive policy, you can enhance your coverage by going for a suitable rider such as Zero Depreciation during car insurance renewal. This will slightly increase your car insurance premium but prove beneficial during claim settlement.

3. Review Your Insurer

Once you have decided on your coverage, you can review the service provided by your existing insurer and decide if you want to continue with the same insurance company or not. You can also look out for an insurance company that provides the desired coverage but at a lesser cost than your current insurance provider.

In 2018, incidences of ransomware use – cyber pirates stealing or making unavailable proprietary information from a computer and demanding money to return it – will double from 2017.

Data breaches are on the rise, too, according to the Insurance Information Institute (III), a nonprofit dedicated to improving public understanding of insurance. III’s Identity Theft Resource Center reports that breaches hit a new record in 2017 – again – with 1,579 breaches tracked, up 44.7 percent from 1,091 in 2016. The number of records exposed rose to about 179 million, compared with 37 million in 2016.

In 2017, the largest U.S. credit bureau, Equifax, suffered a headline-making breach that exposed the personal data of 145 million people, including Social Security numbers.

Two major United States health insurers were breached in 2015, exposing the data of 90 million customers. The U.S. government also has been the target of hackers, including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Internal Revenue Service, the Office of Personnel Management and the Department of the Interior.

The average data breach cost globally is $3.86 million in 2018, up 6.4 percent from $3.62 million in 2017, according to a study from IBM and the Ponemon Institute. And these figures do not include the many attacks that go unreported and undetected.

Dash cams can be a reassuring presence for some drivers and can also provide valuable evidence if you get into an accident.

Exclusive Which? research has identified that, despite their growing popularity, dash cams only get you a discount with four car insurers – and only two mainstream providers.

Axa and Swiftcover offer discounts of 10% and 12.5%, respectively, for drivers with a dash cam. Lesser-known Sure Thing offers a 20% discount, while specialist and classic car insurer Adrian Flux provides up to 15%.

However, Sure Thing and Swiftcover will only apply a discount if you use a Nextbase dash cam – any other model won’t qualify for the reduction in price.

Could a dash cam increase my premiums?

There could be unintended consequences on your car insurance premium for installing a dash cam.

The Which? Money Helpline recently fielded a call from a member who had wired a dash cam into his car. His insurer classed it as a ‘modification’ and that it would, therefore, increase his premiums.

If this is something you are considering, it’s vital to check with your insurer to see what they consider to be a ‘permanent modification’ – and what impact this could have on your premiums – before going ahead.

Like any purchase, signing up for motorcycle insurance involves a certain amount of personal discretion and understanding of risks and rewards; however, we’ve got a few tips to help make the process easier.

How to buy motorcycle insurance

1) Make sure your application is accurate

Do you have any speeding tickets in the recent past? How many licensed motorcyclists are in your house? Will you be storing the bike inside, or outside? The sales agent will ask you all these questions, and more; if you give an incorrect answer, you could pay the price. The last thing you need is to have insurance on your new sportbike canceled a couple of weeks after buying it, when the insurance company finds out you neglected to mention a few speeding tickets. And you certainly don’t want to have your bike stolen, then have your payout denied because you had the machine under a tarp in the backyard instead of locked away in a garage.

2) Make sure you’re covered by your policy

How much will your policy pay you, if you’re injured in a crash and the other motorist’s insurance is insufficient, or if they don’t even have insurance? Your policy’s Accident Benefits (or some similar name) will cover your lost wages, your medical expenses, and (in a worst-case scenario) death and funeral expenses. Take a look at this number; if it’s not high enough, talk to your insurance agent about upping the coverage.

“An additional ‘excess’ or ‘underinsured’ policy can help protect an injured motorcycle rider from an underinsured or uninsured motorist,” says Brown.

“In Canada, most of us live near the border to the United States. Drivers in the US can operate their vehicles with little or no ‘third party coverage’ … If the driver has little or no insurance, the ‘excess’ or ‘underinsured’ policy will increase the offending motorist’s coverage to a much higher amount. This is very important because if someone doesn’t have enough insurance, they usually don’t have any assets to pay for the rider’s injuries.”

Purchasing a home and other home valuables takes serious financial investment. It is for this reason that buyers must ensure homes and other contents are sufficiently covered in order to avoid losing them all in the event of loss or damage caused by fire, theft or natural disasters like floods. Here are some key home insurance tips.

Be aware of upselling mortgage broker

Many banks and building societies encourage borrowers to take out home insurance that is tied in with their mortgage but you may find you are paying more than if you researched the market and insured through a broker. It’s always worth looking for a policy that suits you best and provides the best value.

Estimates

Always ensure that you have accurate estimates for both the re-build cost of your home and the replacement cost of all contents you had in mind when taking out the policy in the first place.

Insure for full replacement value

Remember that this is not the same as the market value. The value of the land on which the house stands is excluded from the calculation of the replacement value of the actual building of the house.

Increase your excess

If you increase the amount you pay in excess, your monthly premiums will decrease. This means you’re taking more of the risk on yourself. Make sure you can afford to pay your excess, though, otherwise you negate the insurance.

Compare deductibles

The deductible is the amount you have to pay out of pocket on each claim and applies only to coverage on your house and personal property. Make sure when choosing a policy that you are comfortable paying the deductible if you make a claim.

Before you purchase travel insurance, do a little research. Each travel insurance plan will be different but most cover a few basic things — medical emergencies, emergency evacuation, and lost luggage.

Temporary coverage during underwriting

Ask for temporary coverage during underwriting so you are protected before the policy kicks in. You may be required to begin paying premiums. The payments are refunded if the policy is not finalized.

Keep notes

Keep notes of all conversations with insurance representatives, no matter how minor, including names and dates. Ask your agent for a copy of statements you made during the application interview. These documents can be useful in contesting a denial.

Ask questions

Ask questions any time you don’t understand something and always answer honestly. Life insurance companies can use the inaccurate or incomplete information to refuse a claim. Even failing to disclose a minor medical condition unrelated to the cause of death can jeopardize your benefits.

List a secondary address

List a secondary address on your policy. If you move or change banks and forget to pay your premium, you have a better chance of receiving the reminders to pay. Most insurance companies cancel policies after 30 to 60 days of missed payments.

Look at guides before buying

Before you buy a policy, check out helpful guides from the American Council of Life Insurers and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

Trying to make a claim to your insurance company after a car accident can be an absolute nightmare—especially when you consider all the red tape you have to go through to get the monetary protection you’ve been paying for. We understand the frustration and sleepless nights a situation like this can cause. They say “prevention is better than cure,” this article will discuss what you can do to simplify the process in order to bring a successful claim:

Tip 1: Avoid a recorded statement

Insurance companies like to tell you that this is standard practice and simply part of the routine, but this is exactly what they will use against you to try and minimize your claim. A recorded statement rarely (if ever) helps with your claim, so try to stay clear.

Tip 2: The doctor should bill your insurance company

Although a lot of people have private insurance to pay for medical bills, a lot of doctors and chiropractors won’t bill your coverage. The biggest reason for this is the fact that they can get more money once your settlement has been finalized. But, although it means more money in THEIR pockets, it essentially means less money in yours. The reason being that many doctors and clinics have contracts with the insurance companies to accept lower fees. By not clearly stating that all bills should go to the insurance company, you are ensuring that you will receive less in the end once a settlement has been reached.

Tip 3: Don’t settle too quickly

To successfully settle a claim in Oregon, you generally have up to two years, which means that you have plenty of time to think about your options. A lot of the times people feel like they will be able to recover from their injuries quickly and they settle for the first amount offered—but people underestimate their injuries, and what you felt was a minor injury can result in chronic medical attention. Beware, though. Don’t wait too long if you plan to hire an attorney or if you want to negotiate a settlement without filing a lawsuit to protect your claim.

Taking a closer look at insurance, you can count on the fact that without it you would lose a lot more money in particular circumstances. Yes, paying insurance might seem like a step back from profit, not a step forward, but considering the aftermath of an accident or a natural calamity, it’s quite safe to say that you are making a beneficial investment. There are lots of different insurance types, and people insure what they think they need to protect the most. Here are some of the insurance types you might run into most often and should consider getting for yourself.

Health insurance

This one is mandatory in quite a few places, but many people don’t have it because they think it’s too expensive. However, in the eventuality of you ending up in the hospital or being in need of medication or otherwise health care, having insurance is extremely important and not having it limits the medical staff in what they can and cannot help you with.

Property insurance

Property insurance protects your property from all sorts of harm and makes sure you are reimbursed in a situation where you lose your property, or it gets damaged. For example, if your house burns down, having insurance is extremely important, and while you might think that you are saving up a lot of money by avoiding insurance, you are gambling under extremely dire odds because your assets and belongings would also be gone and they may exceed the amount you save tenfold.

Vehicle insurance

Just like health insurance, this is something many countries deem a mandatory necessity. You can’t drive on the main roads in many countries without having insurance, and it is for a good reason. Getting into a vehicle accident can be extremely costly, not to mention there is the risk of personal injury as well. Having insurance makes sure that you can sustain the costs of car repairs, not to mention any other costs that might appear in the aftermath of an accident.

Life insurance

While this is a rather somber thing to think about, many people get life insurance as a form of protection for their loved ones. In the case in which the person with life insurance dies, his survivors are reimbursed and receive payment as per the agreed policy. Of course, it’s the kind of payment no one really wants to receive, but it’s better than not having anything in that kind of sad scenario.

According to Land Transport Authority (LTA), “private car owners are not allowed to rent out their cars through rental companies as it is illegal for both the car owner and the company to allow a private car to be used without proper insurance coverage”.

However, non-car owners may choose to hire a private vehicle if they want to through the PrivateCar Rental Scheme. It is a scheme that allows non-car owners to have access to private transport during public holidays and weekends. For weekends, it will be from Friday 7pm to the following Monday, 7am. As for public holidays, it will be from 7pm on the eve of the public holiday to 7am on the first working day following the public holiday.

Under the Private Car Rental Scheme, the car owners are responsible for providing adequate insurance coverage for the period of the rental. Which means that additional insurance for car rental must be purchase during this period. Besides that, the car must be registered under the name of a private individual. Company cars are not allowed. In addition, the hirer must also meet the age and experience criteria specified in the insurance policy.

As for the penalties of driving or renting out an illegal rental car, there will be a maximum penalty fine of $1,000. Imprisonment of not more than three months. Risk of a driving ban up to 12 months. Unlimited liability claims as you are not covered by any insurance.

How to identify legal rental cars in Singapore?

A road tax disc printed “PASSENGER (PRIVATE)” is only meant for private use only.

You can easily identify the difference between legal and illegal rental vehicles by just looking at the road tax disc. A legal rental vehicle will bear a print “MOTORCAR”, where as a private passenger car will show “PASSENGER (PRIVATE)”. Please beware of illegal rental vehicles to avoid any unwanted risks, fines and claims.